


Kind Hearts and Make-Believe Coronets

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trolley witnesses some big changes in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kind Hearts and Make-Believe Coronets

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely a work of speculative fiction. "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" and all characters therein are the sole property of Family Communications, Inc. No disrespect is meant to the memory of Fred Rogers. Thanks to my patient husband for beta reading!
> 
> Written for kylegirl

 

 

The little trolley had grown accustomed to its tracks, leading from the old man's house into the other place, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe they called it, where the small ones lived. Even the trolley wasn't sure how it got every day from the old man's quotidian home into the small ones' brightly colored world; it only went where the tracks led, through the wall of the old man's house and then--darkness--until it arrived at the Neighborhood.

Of course, there weren't only small ones in the Neighborhood--some humans lived there too, in the Neighborhood, Northwood and Southwood, Westwood, and perhaps even in Some Place Else. Not that it mattered much to the trolley; it wasn't a trolley anyone could really ride, although it had been made with tiny seats, rails, and windows for the passengers that had never existed. Nobody could follow the trolley, nobody could ride it, nobody asked why. It was only Make-Believe, after all.

Every day the trolley stopped at the castle, and every day Lady Aberlin was there. Although all the humans seemed able to respond to its chimes, she was the only one the trolley felt could really understand it. Not that there was much to understand, the trolley thought. There were not many things the trolley felt qualified to converse about, since it only knew what it could see from its rails. But, at any rate, Aberlin was always there, and she always had a smile on her face. Until the day she didn't.

When the trolley chimed tentatively at her, Lady Aberlin turned to it, her eyes swollen from crying. "Oh, Trolley--my cousin Tuesday--oh, it's just too awful!" Sobbing, she continued. "He was playing on the castle grounds...and he must have fallen in the pond...and drowned! Poor Aunt Sara and Uncle Friday!"

A grim-faced Handyman Negri arrived with a length of black bunting to drape from the parapets of King Friday's castle. "Lady Aberlin, your uncle wants to see you right away so you can help him plan Prince Tuesday's funeral. Queen Sara's not up to it; she's locked herself in her room." As Aberlin hurried off, the kindly handyman turned to the trolley. "It's a dark day in the Neighborhood, Trolley, no question about it. But it's the damndest thing, that kid's played by that pond all his life and he was always such a great swimmer..." His voice trailed off. "Well, I guess there's no use thinking about that now. So much to be done. The King's ordered a period of mourning for the whole Neighborhood, and I've got a lot of this bunting to hand out."

The trolley watched after Negri as he walked away, unsure what to make of the situation. The humans and small ones had talked to it before about feelings, about sadness, but never had it seen any of them quite like this. This...death...was this something that happened to humans too? Would it happen to the old man? That gave the trolley pause. Without the old man, what need would there be for a conduit to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe? The trolley saw no point in such speculation. Surely a creature as large and intelligent as a human had no worry of ever ceasing to be. After all, the old man had created the trolley, and for all it knew, he had created the Neighborhood too and all its surrounding lands--maybe even the Purple Planet. No, someone who could create worlds like these would never die. The trolley made its way back to the old man's house with a new appreciation for its creator.

The next time the trolley came to the Neighborhood, Prince Tuesday's funeral was underway. A procession of small ones followed behind King Friday as Donkey Hodie pulled the wagon carrying the little prince's coffin. The humans, led by Aberlin, carried flowers and wreaths. The trolley noticed that Queen Sara was missing, and chimed to Aberlin as she passed. "Hello, Trolley," she whispered. "Aunt Sara wouldn't come out of the castle. Oh, I'm ever so worried about her. But I have to do this for Uncle Friday now."

The trolley looked after the passing figures and stood awhile outside the castle. When a single scream suddenly rang out, followed by a small but definite thud, the trolley could do nothing but chime until the small ones returned. Queen Sara was found later in her room, having seemingly thrown herself onto an antique sword from the castle armory. The trolley believed it had seen through one of the castle's tiny square windows the figure of Lady Elaine Fairchilde, who had not been in the funeral procession, using her Boomerang Toomerang Zoomerang to transport herself back to the Museum-Go-Round. But it wasn't sure what that might mean.

With the death of the good Queen Sara Saturday, there was no one to check King Friday's rages and capricious declarations. Lady Aberlin did her best, but often found herself on the wrong end of her uncle's rants. The trolley knew this because Aberlin always found time to sneak away and talk to it. The castle fairly shook when King Friday shouted for Aberlin, and she would hurry away with tears in her eyes. On one such occasion, the trolley noticed Lady Elaine outside, looking in a window.

"Oh, hello, toots," Fairchilde cackled to the trolley. "Looks like the old man's on his last legs. Too bad about Sara and Tuesday, but sometimes, y'know, things don't turn out like you plan. And sometimes"--her hard little eyes seemed to glisten--"sometimes they do. See ya 'round." The trolley considered asking Aberlin about what this could mean, but it had no wish to add to her unhappiness.

The trolley noticed some changes in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe over the next few times it visited. Cornflake S. Pecially's factory started making something the trolley had never seen before. Weapons, Aberlin said. King Friday was convinced that someone was plotting against him. The king himself had gone into hiding, refusing to leave the castle just as Queen Sara had after Prince Tuesday's death. And the trolley knew through Aberlin that Lady Elaine had been receiving a steady stream of visitors from the lands around the Neighborhood. So when the news came that King Friday had thrown himself from the top parapet of his castle, the trolley wondered if Aberlin would be the new Queen of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

But that was not to be. Lady Elaine Fairchilde had won the support of Mayor Maggie and Neighbor Aber of Westwood, and had assumed the throne herself, naming herself Queen and compelling Lady Aberlin to act as her servant. Aberlin recounted tearfully to the trolley the tasks and duties Fairchilde forced upon her, some of which the trolley didn't understand; yet, it was reluctant to ask Aberlin to explain since they obviously upset her so.

On the day a rebellion led by X the Owl was brutally put down by Queen Elaine's Neighborhood Defense Forces, Aberlin decided her only chance was to try to get a message beyond the Neighborhood, where the trolley alone could journey unmolested. "Dear Trolley. You must help us," Aberlin murmured, tucking a folded piece of paper into the trolley's back window, among the miniature seats. The little trolley tried its best to chime in a lower, more sympathetic tone, but of course it could not. It was only, after all, what the old man had made it.

Later, when it reached the old man, the trolley realized that the note was no longer where Lady Aberlin had so carefully placed it. The trolley knew it should feel something, regret, confusion, horror--but instead found itself chiming cheerily as always, retreating into its little berth in the wall. Even in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, not every wish can come true.

 


End file.
